Who

1
Whos the daddy? Genetics and parental identity

• HI269
• Week 4

2
Whos the daddy? Family identities in perspective

• I. Defining the family shaping the history of
  kinship
• A. In law
• B. In culture
• C. In nature?
• II. Family and technology in the genetic age
• A. pater semper certas est?
• B. DNA is thicker than water?
• C. Old kinship for new families?

3
Defining Family

• In Law
• (Social) Paternity is basis for inheritance
• Traditionally, paternity determined by marriage
• Traditionally, maternity determined by
  gestation/birth
• Legal code privileges culturally-rooted norms of
  family (normative family and in the interests
  of the child)
• Changes post genetics/NRTs
• Increasing focus on biological paternity and
  rights to be associated with it
• Inconsistencies in law which privilege social
  over biological fathers (eg their rights in cases
  of AID) being removed
• fact of birth now must be reassessed

• In Culture
• (Social) Paternity basis for many forms of social
  status
• Blood is thicker than water
• Structural and cultural preference for specific
  family structures eg, in West, a blood-based
  kinship, nuclear, heterosexual, with at least one
  breadwinner
• Changes post genetics/NRTs
• Use of genetic testing to confirm/affirm
  parentage -gt diminished focus on social
  parenting?
• Availability of biological kinship to populations
  previously excluded from this privileged social
  form?

4
Family in nature?

• There is of course the distinction dictated by
  nature between a bastard and his mother and a
  bastard and his father and this distinction has
  both an evidential and a familial aspect. Nature
  permits that a man may produce more bastards more
  secretly. Facts dictate that it must be far more
  difficult to establish the paternity of a bastard
  than his maternity blood tests can sometimes
  deny an alleged paternity but at present cannot
  to any significant extent establish it the facts
  of birth normally establish maternity.
• Report of the Committee on the Law of Succession
  in Relation to Illegitimate Persons (Russell
  Report), 1966.

5
Status of the human embryo in nature? Law?
A human embryo cannot be thought of as a person,
or even a potential person. It is simply a
collection of cells which, unless it implants in
a human uterine environment, has no potential for
development. OR the embryo of the human
species must be afforded some protection in
law Warnock Report, 1985
6
NRTs and the Law UK timeline

• 1930s AID comes into common (but unpublicised)
  use in US/UK
• 1943-5 publication on frequency of AID cases in
  BMJ produces popular AND medical outrage, calls
  for bans in Parliament, Church
• 1958 Divorce case alleged use of AID w/o
  husbands permission as grounds for divorce on
  basis of adultery
• 1959 Feversham Committee established to determine
  bastardy of AID children
• 1966 Report of the Committee on the Law of
  Succession in Relation to Illegitimate Persons
  (Russell Report)
• 1975 Adopted children gain right to see original
  birth cert at age 18.
• 1982 Warnock Committee formed to debate ethnics
  of assisted reproduction and rights of genetic
  parents over children produced by them (for other
  non-biological families)
• 1985 Warnock Report published recommending strict
  regulation
• 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act
  established HFEA limited time limits in Abortion
  Act to 24 weeks Established that Surrogacy
  arrangements not legally enforceable. Only
  regulates donated gametes, so DOES NOT regulate
  GIFT or IUI from partners gametes.
• 2001 Human Reproductive Cloning Act Prohibition
  of human cloning
• 2004 Amendment of the HFEA Act to remove the
  right of new donors to be anonymous once the
  child has become 18. Donors are still protected
  from legal claims for economic support/parental
  responsibility.
• 2006 European Tissue Directive comes into effect
  as UK law, regulating gametes as well as other
  tissues
• April 2007 UK bans sale/provision of fresh
  (therefore previously unregulated) sperm over the
  internet

7
Pater semper certas est?
Thomas Beatie, a married man who used to be a
woman, is pregnant with a baby girl TimesOnline
March 26, 2008
Junior, Universal Pictures, 1994
8
male pregnancy a case study

• "I have a very stable male gender identity. I see
  pregnancy as a process, and it doesn't define who
  I am. It's not a male or female desire to want to
  have a childit's a human desire I'm a person,
  and I have the right to have my own biological
  child."
• "We've had a really hard time finding doctors to
  treat us and to help us get pregnant We got
  rejected by our first doctor because he said that
  his staff felt uncomfortable working with someone
  like me."
• "Unfortunately, they don't make man-ternity
  clothes, so I'm kind of stuck. I have no idea
  what I'm going to wear in the future when I get
  bigger."
• Thomas Beatie, Oprah Winfrey Show, 04/03/2008

9
The icky factor?

• the pregnant man would become a father. Or
  rather, a mother. And here's the thing. We find
  this unpalatable, but not because of the dangers
  involved, the strange technology, the
  cutting-edge operations. It's because it changes
  something fundamental about the way we see the
  world. Or rather, about the way we feel. Thinking
  about a pregnant man is difficult on an emotional
  level, because our emotions are formed, according
  to evolutionary biologists, by one crucial
  factor. And that's whether we have the brain
  chemistry of, on the one hand, a sperm shooter,
  or, on the other, an egg protector. These are the
  two halves of our emotional world. Even if you're
  gay, say the evolutionary biologists, you're
  either a sperm-shooter or an egg-protector at
  heart.
• William Leith Pregnant Men Seven Magazine,
  Sunday Telegraph, 10/04/2008

10
But will it sell? Commercialising the fatherhood
experience or selling celibacy?
The Empathy Belly
11
So is DNA is thicker than water?
12
Advantages and disadvantages of forms of sperm
donation
Regulated gamete donation ManNotIncluded and sim. Known donor insemination Sex with a stranger
Fresh sperm No Yes Yes Yes
Anonymity convenience No No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Safety Legal protection Yes Yes Uncertain No Yes No No No
cost No No Yes Yes
Legal protection for donor Yes No No No
Science and Technology Parliamentary Subcommittee
Report on Human Reproductive Technologies and the
Law, 2004
13
Old kinship for new families?Or old families
for new genetic kin?
14
OR does egg donor sperm from dad A sperm
from dad B plus test tube gestational mother
adoption and immigration lawyers

The new ideal nuclear family?
15
New options for non-traditional families?

• Do the NRTs allow people to form families more
  flexibly, or in novel formats?
• Or do they simply allow new groups to reproduce
  the culturally preferred nuclear family norm?